How do you find your home in a world, where your body is out of place? The Quiet Migration is a stunningly beautiful, quiet, and extremely powerful coming-of-age story of identity and belonging that shines a light on the difficulties transnational adoptees are faced with.
The Quiet Migration
Carl, 19, lives a quiet life in the Danish countryside with his adoptive parents, who expect him to take over the family farm one day, continuing their traditions. But Carl begins to feel the pull of two worlds – “home” plus his native homeland, South Korea – and the day is fast approaching when he will have to choose.
The Quiet Migration centers around transnational adoption and the difficult formation of kinship in adoptive families. The intention with the film is to include adoptees and their existence as a part of history, to make hidden lives visible and from an insider’s perspective shed light on some of the unforeseen consequences that this unusual kind of migration causes.
Through the years, director Malene Choi has talked to countless adoptees and their common ground has undeniably been the challenge of forming a kinship and the difficulty of becoming a united family. Several has even doubted if they belong to their family equal to the rest of the family members.
As an adoptee herself, Malene Choi has experienced firsthand what it’s like to live as a hidden minority in Denmark amongst the majority – within white adoptive families.
According to her, it gives them a more privileged status with more rights than other immigrants. They are more protected, but also more vulnerable, because they came alone, migrated as babies or very young children. That’s why transnational adoption is called the quiet migration.
Led by an all-female creative team, The Quiet Migration is a beautiful story of love and a commentary on migration, family and belonging.
About MANNA FILM
MANNA FILM wants to offer you stories and film experiences that you didn’t think you needed - just like manna, an unexpected gift, suddenly falling down from heaven. They strive to challenge and move you with visual excitement – always making sure that you never know what falls down next.
MANNA FILM is an independent film production company founded in 2013 by producer Maria Møller Kjeldgaard. Manna Film develops, produces, and co-produces projects that experiment with film language and storytelling, focusing on projects intended for an international audience. Manna Film has and continues to establish long term relationships with screenwriters and directors with a strong personal voice and artistic vision.
The company produces fiction features, documentaries, and series.